


A Lighthouse From Afar

by toesohnoes



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Doctor/Patient, M/M, Meditation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal teaches Will how to clear his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lighthouse From Afar

Will closes his eyes. In the blackness, he can still feel the rumble of his thoughts dragging him out of any attempt at sleep or relaxation - foreign minds try to press in. He can feel blood on his hands and panic in his heart. Fear and rage and terrifying, simple curiosity. Crime scenes reconstruct and rewind and his hands flex, fingers twitch. He feels a knife in his hand, the power it gives him, and he hears the sounds of panting, begging terror.

“Let it go,” Hannibal instructs, his soft voice like a knife through the emotions closing in.

The knife vanishes.

Will is himself again, sitting in a chair in Lecter’s office. He can feel the upholstery beneath his white-knuckled fingers and forces himself to relax, bit by bit. His hand aches. “It’s difficult,” he admits, eyes still closed. “‘Letting go’. I can’t get it all out of my head.”

“If it were easy, you would not be here,” Lecter reminds him. “Breathe deeply. To clear your mind requires practice. It is a skill that you must learn.”

Will wants to tell Lecter that he has been in many therapists’ chairs over the years, that he has inhaled and exhaled and cleared his mind and ran through the motions so often that he could teach it himself - and maybe, a few weeks ago, he would have said exactly that. He can remember the walls he used to build between himself and Lecter, thick barricades to keep him out. There are doorways now. Windows.

Lecter feeds his dogs.

Will thinks of that, and thinks of home, and thinks of a lighthouse from afar, as he allows himself to slip away from himself and away from the others he has let into his mind. Lecter is a silent ghost in the room: Will thinks he can hear him breathing, but nothing else.

Thoughts trickle back and forth through his mind, uncontrollable, but they are not overwhelming in the way he’s used to - he is thinking, and he is aware of it, and it is under control. His shoulders untense and he sinks back into the armchair, his chin jutting out as he adjusts. He finds himself more relaxed than he ever feels, even back at home in his own bed, especially there. Here, in Hannibal’s office, there are no nightmares to haunt him.

Time disappears and he floats in and out, conscious and not, the seconds alternating between painfully slow and invisibly absent, until he hears the softness of Hannibal’s voice. “You can open your eyes now,” he says.

Will summons the strength to do so, blinking doe-slow, and finds Hannibal directly in front of him, leaning down - he hadn’t heard him move, but now he finds Hannibal uncomfortably close, his features in high definition. Eye contact is impossible to avoid but Will tries it anyway, instinctively, his eyes shooting down only to land on Hannibal’s thin, parted lips. That’s no better at all.

“Will,” Hannibal says, the rumble of his voice just enough to anchor Will again. “It’s alright.”

The panic that floods through Will is too fast and too fleeting to have a name - there isn’t a second for thought, just a frozen moment as he tries to process what has happened and why Hannibal has so purposefully invaded his carefully crafted peace. He stumbles forward without thinking, halting and clumsy and unsure, crashing into Hannibal’s place with a bump of a kiss, contact like a car crash, hands sitting uselessly against his own legs. The only physical contact between them remains lip to lip, mouth to mouth, as Will pushes forward alone.

It is only when Hannibal’s hands glide elegantly over his cheek that Will finally realises he has made the right choice.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at my [tumblr](http://howevermanywords.tumblr.com/post/49525873616/will-closes-his-eyes-in-the-blackness-he-can).


End file.
